No Drama

Hey everyone! Today’s blog post was inspired by a podcast called “No Drama” by Leslie Ludy. I was challenged by her message this morning, as Leslie quoted an important scripture passage from 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 which says:

That you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.

What does it mean to lead a quiet life, to mind our own business and to work with our own hands? How can we live this out on a daily basis, while still being able to enjoy the life God has designed for each of us?

The first thing we need to ask ourselves is, “Am I leading a quiet life?” In other words, am I involving myself in other people’s business or am I staying out of their drama? I think sometimes as humans, we tend to go towards where the “excitement” or the latest news is. However, as Christian’s our excitement should come from the great adventure of living with and for Jesus Christ. He is the One who has given us life abundantly and eternally, what more could we need? If we are constantly wanting to get in on the latest gossip about who’s dating who, or who’s mad at who, we will find our excitement for Jesus has been pulled away onto meaningless matters.

A second thing we should be asking ourselves is, “are we minding our own business?” In today’s culture, it can be so easy and tempting to want to know every little detail about someone else’s life. It can also be very difficult not to share every single detail about our lives with the rest of the world. The truth is, our purpose in life is not to know every single detail about each person. In fact, it’s kind of an unhealthy way of living because we can become so caught up in someone else’s life, and forget about the calling God has placed on our own lives. Our culture has become so dependant on social media as being the “source” of finding out all the details about someone’s life. It’s actually so crazy to think that we can know more about someone’s life before even meeting them, just by how much they post about their personal lives. I think especially with things such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, we can learn so much about someone’s life and start comparing our lives with theirs. Again, not something God has called us to do.

The final question we can ask ourselves us “Am I working with my own hands?” I think for most of us, we find ourselves in places of boredom or pure laziness, and as a result, we grab a hold of our cellular device and constantly text, or scroll through our social media newsfeed. Instead of doing something that is honoring to God, we find ourselves staring at a lit up screen for hours until we finally find the motivation to do something productive for the Kingdom. I am guilty of this, especially when I just don’t”feel” like doing anything. Instead of resting, or reading my Bible, my go-to “activity” is scrolling through my Facebook. While I don’t think Facebook is necessarily a bad thing, it can be if we spend far too much of our precious time and energy looking at other’s lives instead of focusing on our divine calling from the Lord.

I hope this helps you discover ways to lead a quiet life. It can be so easy to get ourselves involved in things that we shouldn’t be, especially when we think we’re helping someone else by getting involved in their matters. But I think the key difference between helping someone and being a busybody is this: Are we still living out our God-given tasks, or are we missing out on them? I believe we should be serving and honoring one another, but not necessarily avoiding our calling just because we want to be “in the know.”